Question

Margaret Mead's groundbreaking work in culture and personality published in 1928 was a deliberate test of a Western psychological hypothesis. What was this hypothesis?

Answer 1

Margaret Mead's research challenged the hypothesis that gendered behaviors are largely biologically determined, instead finding strong cultural influences on gender roles.

Step-by-step explanation:

Margaret Mead's groundbreaking work in culture and personality published in 1928 was indeed a deliberate test of a Western psychological hypothesis. This hypothesis was that gendered behaviors were primarily biologically determined and would exhibit only minor variations across different cultures. However, Mead's research in New Guinea suggested otherwise. She discovered evident and strong cultural influences on gender roles in her 1935 book, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, where she detailed her findings from three different cultural groups with vastly different interpretations of gender roles, challenging the Western hypothesis.